Goddess of Mercy

2004

Director Ann Hui's film, which opened the 2004 Hong Kong International Film Festival, follows the travails of An Xin (Vicki Zhao), a woman whose work life may be under control, but whose love life is in a shambles. And no wonder: She's juggling two men -- a drug kingpin she meets through work (Nicholas Tse) and her reformed playboy fiancée (Liu Yunlong). Plus, An Xin still hasn't gotten over the death of her husband, Tienjun (Chen Jiabin).

2.8 Average Rating

The Ranch

2004

Amy Madigan heads the cast as Mary Larkin, the no-nonsense madam who runs Diamond Ranch -- a cathouse on the outskirts of Reno, Nev., that caters to the carnal needs of any client who can pay the going rate. As the bordello's sexy ladies ply their trade, Mary keeps a watchful eye on her charges, including a struggling single mother (Jessica Collins) and an ex-actress whose Hollywood dreams evaporated (Nicki Micheaux).

2.8 Average Rating

A Real Life

2009

When petty thief Bruno (Guillaume Depardieu) falls in love with Isabelle (Florence Loiret), a teacher, they believe they can build a life together despite his criminal past. That is, until the authorities begin to close in and the two are forced on the lam in the wilderness. Drifting down the river and wandering through the woods, they become lost in each other, blithely ignoring the future. This romance was Depardieu's final film.

2.8 Average Rating

Celebrating the Art of the Short Film

2005

The independent and foreign-film buffs at Film Movement round up six original short features in this unique cinematic collection, celebrating the art of the abbreviated celluloid form. Selections include "Inja" (Steven Pasvolsky and Joe Weatherstone), "Das Rad" (Chris Stenner and Heidi Wittlinger) and "Mt. Head" (Koji Yamamura), which all received Academy Award nominations, and the Sundance selection "Sangam" (Prashant Bhargava).

2.8 Average Rating

In Your Hands

2004

After trying for years to have a baby, newly anointed priest Anna (Ann Eleonora Jorgensen) and her husband face the dispiriting possibility of infertility. But when Anna takes a post as a chaplain in a women's prison, she meets Kate (Trine Dyrholm), an inmate said to possess healing powers. Soon, Anna finds that, miraculously, she's pregnant. But Kate harbors a secret that could have fateful consequences for both women.

2.8 Average Rating

Home

2008

Poet Inga (Marcia Gay Harden) wants to buy and restore an old house that reminds her of her childhood. The situation -- along with her suffering marriage, her beloved daughter (Eulala Scheel), a dark family history and a surprise diagnosis -- provides Inga with plenty of material. Wrestling with her issues through her poetry -- which she inevitably discards -- Inga inches closer to a realization that will change her forever in this stirring drama.

2.8 Average Rating

The Pack

2009

Lucie Arnaz stars in this modern social drama, based on actual events and court cases, about the responsibility smokers bear for the health risks they may inflict on other people, intentionally or not. The district attorney (Carlos Leon) elects to prosecute widow Eleanor Jordan for murder because her husband died of lung cancer after breathing her secondhand smoke for 30 years -- a case brought to his attention by the couple's son (Ryan Homchick).

2.8 Average Rating

Rain

2001

It's certainly no summer of love when 13-year-old Janey (Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki) must cope with her own burgeoning emotional needs and budding sexuality at the same time her parents dissolve their marriage during a vacation stay at a lakeside cottage. Sparse dialogue and an absence of melodrama inform this penetrating character study of a young woman coming of age.

2.8 Average Rating

Punish Me

2005

Elsa Seifert (Maren Kroymann), a middle-aged probation officer, finds her professional and personal lives blurring (with potentially disastrous consequences) when 16-year-old delinquent Jan Winkler (Kostja Ullmann) is placed under her supervision. As the restless young man insinuates himself into Elsa's empty-nest household, he also offers to sexually subjugate himself to her. Wary but enticed, Elsa takes their relationship to the next level.

2.8 Average Rating

To Die for Tano

1997

A hit in Italy, this genre-bending musical drama satirizes the true story of Tano Guarrasi (Ciccio Guarino), a slain Italian mafioso notorious for his volatile temper and peculiar determination to prevent his four sisters from marrying. As mourners gather for a wake, they offer a mélange of rap songs, dance numbers and comedy bits that suggest Guarrasi's oppressive hand might even reach out from the grave.

2.7 Average Rating

In the Shadows

1999

Cash-strapped waitress Cynthia (Molly Parker) takes a job caring for moneyed cancer patient Eleanor Dunston (Joely Richardson). When she shows an interest in Cynthia's boyfriend, Buck (Aden Young), Cynthia persuades him to pose as her half brother so he can seduce the dying woman into leaving him her fortune. Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

2.7 Average Rating

The Winter's Tale

1981

Robert Stephens, Jeremy Kemp and Anna Calder-Marshall star in this BBC production of Shakespeare's romance about Sicilian King Leontes, who wrongfully accuses his wife of adultery. Sixteen years later, Leontes gets a second chance at happiness when he meets Perdita, a shepherd girl of mysterious lineage. Part drama, part comedy, this romantic tale ends with a little magic and a very real engagement. Debbie Farrington also stars.

2.7 Average Rating

Angela

1995

In an effort to cope with her difficult family life, 10-year-old Angela withdraws into an imaginary world in which she tries to purge herself and her 6-year-old sister of evil, hoping that it will cure their mentally ill mother.

2.7 Average Rating

The Alice

2004

In this engrossing made-for-TV drama, adventure, mystery and romance collide as Aussies from across the land Down Under -- drawn by inexplicable forces -- converge on the outback town of Alice Springs to observe a total solar eclipse. When they cross paths, the lives of washed-up rock star Jack Jaffers (Erik Thomson), jittery nurse Helen Gregory (Caitlin McDougall) and botanist Matt Marione (Patrick Brammall) will never be the same.

2.7 Average Rating

Old Joy

2006

When old friends Mark (Daniel London) and Kurt (Will Oldham) embark on a weekend camping trip in the Oregon Cascades, they find themselves exploring much more than nature in this meditation on friendship, memory and generational malaise. As the men journey deeper into the wilderness -- first losing, and then finding, their way -- they struggle to find common ground in the divergent paths they've chosen.

2.7 Average Rating

Farewell China

1990

Hong Kong acting legends Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Maggie Cheung star as a Chinese couple separated by the painful, arduous and risky process of illegal immigration to America. A year after his wife leaves for New York City, Leung Ka-Fai follows, but discovers his wife's been lost in the crush of poverty, hardship and urban decay. Gritty and unsentimental, Farewell China was nominated for Best Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

2.7 Average Rating